Basically, a strong glute will pretty much cure any lower-body postural problem, and when developed right, it will look great, as fitness model Marzia Prince and singer Nicole Scherzinger can attest.
Every woman I’ve ever worked with or bumped into in the gym always wants a better butt. However, what do they do to try to achieve it? They sit on a bike or a new cardio machine for 45 minutes or they go and sit on the hip abductor machine hoping to create steal buns.
Working like this will help atrophy (shrink) your gluteal muscles and before you think it’s a good idea because you have a big butt, it’s not. Weak glutes will lead to all sorts of postural problems, not just a sagging butt.
If you want to have a nice pair of glutes, you have to do the work. The main thing is to really isolate the glutes. The glutes get hit a lot with other exercises, like squats and lunges, but the exercises in the workout below really isolate the glutes. The hip thrust, seen in weeks 7-9, recruits more muscle fibers in the glutes than a full squat.
These exercises can be done along with your leg workout or as part of a full body workout. The first thing to do is activate the gluteal muscle fibers, as they have probably been inactive for the last few years, before you start with the additional weight.
If you skip weeks 1-3 and 4-6 and go directly to weeks 7-9, you will be working to strengthen current imbalances. The first phase is very important as it basically teaches you to contract the gluteal muscles. Until you can get this right, weeks 4-9 are out of the question.
Then you want to move into weeks 4-6 and start adding some size and shape to your glutes, which will set them up for the strength of weeks 7-9. The strength phase will help build strength in the glutes and help keep them strong and, in the short and long term, provide much more support for the hip and lower back structure.
weeks 1-3
High repetition glute activation work
3 days a week, eg Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Quadruped Hip Extension – 2 x 20 reps per side
Glute Bridge Raise – 2 x 20 reps
Fire Hydrant – 2 x 20 reps per side
weeks 4-6
hypertrophy work
3 days a week, eg Monday, Wednesday, Friday
Barbell Glute Bridge – 3 x 15 reps
Weighted Bird Dogs – 3 x 15 reps
Weeks 7-9
strength work
2 days a week, for example, Monday and Thursday or Tuesday and Friday
Barbell Hip Thrusts – 5 x 5 reps